Breaking Down the Pyramid

Richard Lung

Director-Flight Crew Scheduling

The Pilot Schedule, December 1999

While enroute to the Miami Domicile meeting,I chatted with a Miami-based
B767 Captain and learned to my dismay that United had closed the Miami
domicile in early 1992, only to reopen it six months later after startup
of Pan Am's Latin America route authorities. This was a highly disruptive
event that whipsawed the lives of many pilots. Since some departments had
knowledge of the impending Pan Am purchase in early 1992, my conclusion
is that there probably wasn't much two-way communication between the strategic
planning and operating groups back in the pre-ESOP days.

This example represents a classic pyramid where those on top in the
Planning organizations call the shots and the operating groups carry out
the orders. In our world, Aircraft Scheduling is at the top of the pyramid,
Flight Crew Resources is in the middle of the pyramid, and the pilot group
is at the bottom of the pyramid. While we have managed to "get by"
historically with this pyramid, we've got to change the way we work with
each other to meet the challenges of our aggressive route and fleet plan.
We are taking delivery of more than 200 aircraft over the next four to
five years, and retiring nearly 125. Having the right number of pilots
in the right fleet, seats and domiciles at the right time is going to be
a huge challenge. So what have we been doing to meet these challenges?

Alignment with Aircraft SchedulingSimply said, we have been working very hard to align our business processes
with our two key stakeholders: Aircraft Scheduling and you, the pilot group.
There is now excellent two-way communication between Flight Crew
Resources and Aircraft Scheduling. There are no surprises.
When there are major route planning decisions, we get together and jointly
make decisions that consider not only revenue impact but also the impact
to the Flight Operations organization and the pilot group. While
we often get "out-revenued" on many decisions, on occasion, we have been
able to influence Aircraft Scheduling decisions, or at least reach commitments
to stabilize route or equipment assignments so that we can go forward with
allocation of flying decisions. Some notable examples of this include:
a commitment from Aircraft Scheduling to keep LAX-LHR in a B777 allowing
us to open a LAX B777 base in January 1999, to ensure available crews if
we had gotten the LAX-GRU route authority; an assurance that a B400 will
be on the HNL-NRT route for the foreseeable future allowing us to transition
the HNL-NRT B747 base to a HNL-NRT B400 base in February 2000; and acknowledgement
that there will be limited B777 entries into NRT in the next couple of
years, driving a real need for a SEA-NRT B777 base opening in November
1999.

Once decisions are jointly agreed to, we have enough lead time to execute
the decisions, minimize disruption to the pilot group, and communicate
these decisions to the System Schedule Committee and to you.

Flying UpdatesWith respect to breaking down the bottom tier of the pyramid, here
are some of the latest flying updates since the last article. HNL
B400 will officially open on Jan. 31, with flying from HNL-SFO starting
Feb. 8. We were successful in working with Aircraft Scheduling to add a
B400 temporarily from HNL to the West Coast in February to allow us to
build up HNL in an orderly manner and to meet some ALPA objectives.

Two new B400 missions are expected to be flown out of SFO by summer
2000, SFO-PEK and SFO-LHR. This is in addition to the SFO-SHA route
and another SFO-Asian route that we had already been planning. This
brings the total of new B400 SFO missions to four by next summer (assuming
all remaining regulatory hurdles are met), with each route accounting for
roughly 20 Captain and 40-55 First Officer B400 positions. To accomplish
this aggressive plan, we are going to pull down two to three narrowbodies'
worth of domestic flying from the February to May off-peak flying to send
upgrading crews to B400 training. A good vacation deferral response
to date has also contributed to our ability to add this new flying. Thanks
again for your support and your help in meeting our aggressive flying plans!